I’m not really a fan of slightly disingenuous blog titles myself, so I’ll get my apology for the one above out of the way right now: no, Carlos Ruiz is not always deserving of top-tier MVP consideration.

Boy, way to start on a downer, Paul. Alright, here’s what caught my eye early Thursday evening:

That’s Bob Vetrone of the Philly Daily News dropping a fun bit of trivia. Who would have expected Carlos Ruiz to be one of three players included in such a list?

In reality, Chooch has never come all that close to actually winning the award, even in this, the best season of his career. The nature of the catching position often requires more days off – or, in the case of Joe Mauer and Buster Posey, the availability of first base or the DH slot – than can really be afforded in such an award race. His MVP finishes since 2010, thanks to a smattering of downballot votes, reads tied for 17th, tied for 23rd and now tied for 28th.

Since 2010, Ruiz has a cumulative .303/.388/.454 batting line, with 83 doubles, 31 homers and 161 RBI. He’s walked 132 times against 152 strikeouts, a .868 ratio that only 17 other batters can claim in at least 1,000 plate appearances during that time:

That list has its highs and lows, but the highs are pretty consistent.

An additional nugget that may not necessarily make Ruiz’s 2012 be any more impressive or contain some hidden meaning: Chooch hit .327/.399/.542 when defensively designated as catcher, which encompass all but 15 of his 421 total. Posey, this year’s recently coronated National League MVP, had 480 PA when designated as a catcher and hit .329/.398/.540. Particularly insightful that is not, amusingly similar it is.

Long story short, Ruiz’s emergence as a top-tier catcher (his 34.02 caught stealing percentage was good for 10th in the Majors this season, oh-by-the-way) may never stop being amazing, and any chance to give the man a little extra dap is one we should all take.

Remember way back at the start of July, when Cliff Lee had yet to win a game? When the city of Philadelphia was bemoaning his five-year deal, begging for GM Ruben Amaro to send him to the Dodgers for the salary relief? Turns out Lee finished with some pretty good numbers.

Prior to his last two starts — both seven-inning, 5 ER affairs — a legitimate non-Sabermetric case could have been made placing Lee in a very preliminary Cy Young discussion.

[…]

There is not one performance-based metric that is alarming regarding Cliff Lee. Yes, it is June 25 and he has zero wins and his ERA is just under 4.00, but such is life in small samples.

Lee finished with a 3.16 ERA despite a 6-9 record and should have been in line for at least a few votes at the back end of the NL Cy Young ballot, but he wasn’t so much as an afterthought on anyone’s ballot. Surprisingly, Lee’s numbers stack up very well among the starters that were mentioned:

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the stat or would like a refresher, SIERA (Skill Interactive Earned Run Average) is a stat that attempts to remove factors out of a pitcher’s control to find out the underlying performance. Pitchers have a lot of control over three specific things: strikeouts, walks, and ground/fly balls (to a lesser extent, the quality of such contact as well). For example, Kyle Lohse had a 2.86 ERA but a 4.06 SIERA, implicating that Lohse was the benefactor of good fortune throughout his season. Indeed, Lohse had a .262 BABIP, nearly 50 points lower than Lee’s. Lee averaged a strikeout for one in every four batters faced while Lohse averaged one in every six batters; both were very stingy in the walks department.

Lee was hurt by a Phillies team that was subpar defensively, losing premier defenders in Chase Utley and Freddy Galvis for much of the season, and having to use mediocre defenders such as Ty Wigginton and Mike Fontenot. This impacted the amount of batted balls converted into outs, making some Phillies pitchers look worse than their performance indicated. When writers utilize stats such as won-lost record and ERA to evaluate pitchers, they are in effect punishing or rewarding pitchers for the quality of the defense behind them.

This isn’t to say that Lee should have actually won the award, as SIERA isn’t the be-all, end-all stat. ERA retrodictors in general seem to be a bit behind properly crediting pitchers with specific batted ball skills (e.g. Matt Cain, as I explained at Baseball Prospectus). But Lee’s won-lost record is still distracting people from appreciating what was otherwise a great season for the left-hander. The good news is that Lee will be back, ready to make another run at some hardware in 2013.